Building a self looping "SMOT"

[JouleSeeker]

Yes - good point, and I thank you, Norman.  Can you provide a photo or vid of your magnet array and loop -- as Elecar has done?

The purpose of my question was to get you to focus instead of just keyboarding away and it worked very well in a short time. Thank you for getting focused. Now may the game continue.

My ball goes past its dropped point by about 1/4 inch now which is just like my sick pendulum.
I'm using a magnet array with stacked magnets and metal facing much like elecar's array.
gettin there only slowly.

Norman

" metal facing"  -- what material do you use here?  and can you tell what is the N/S orientation of the magnets in the array?  (Questions to Norman and Elecar)

[norman6538]

I am using some stove pipe galvanized metal which is thin enough that the magnet stack penetrates it and reaches the ball. I play with both polarities and you should too. You can do it if you get off the keyboard and go to the bench...As you might suspect, I do more benchwork than keyboarding cause I get better results.

The real trick here is you have to balance the magetic forces and gravity forces and that requires the slight slope instead of a vertical pendulum which has too much gravity.

Norman

[TinselKoala]

So then you say slowing something down is adding energy?
That's a bit different logic, if that's what your calling it.
So I can add energy to my car by slowing it down?
WTF, I guess we learn something new every day.

I suppose I could take something off the table and move it closer to the floor to get a really big gain in potential energy!

I think you are deliberately misunderstanding me. GPE and MPE (attractive) are negative, with the "zero" at infinite distance.

The point is that all the work needs to be accounted for. When you position a magnet by hand in an attractive or repelling field, the work that you put in to do this is part of the energy input to the total system: it has to come from somewhere, in order to get the magnet to where you position it. It could represent energy you are storing in the system if you are putting the magnet into a repulsive zone, or it could represent energy that you are taking out of the system by letting it do work on you as you bring the magnet slowly to that position in an attractive zone. Either way, it represents an increase in the total energy that you have to account for. In the repulsive case you are "prestocking" the system with some extra energy, this should be obvious, I hope. In the attractive case you are removing some of the (potential) energy that was in there already... so really your "start" is not when you release the magnet, but rather when you started lowering the magnet into the "well" of attraction. In other words, the system contained more energy at the actual "start" than you think it does when you release the magnet within the attractive zone.

Stretch out a spring. Now use your hand to let the spring spring back slowly. Are you doing work or not? You are providing a force, over a distance, to _prevent_ the spring from snapping back quickly. Just so with the manual positioning of a magnet in an attractive field. If the magnet is attracted and you are preventing it from moving in at its "natural" speed, you are doing work. If you have to push the magnet into position against a repelling field, you are (obviously) doing work. If you have to push a magnet through a "gate" for it to snap rapidly out the other side... you are doing work, slowly, which is returned by the magnets more rapidly on the other side of the gate.

Mock me all you like, but ask Google "why are GPE and MPE (attractive) negative"  first, please.


http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/gpot.html
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/pegrav.html (read downwards)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_energy
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=163171
http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/sat2/physics/chapter11section3.rhtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potential_energy#Magnetic_potential_energy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_potential

Any time you are using your hands or any kind of outside mechanical force on your SMOT to move something into position for action, you are adding energy _to the system's total energy budget_  no matter in which direction the force acts.

If you have to move a magnet into position, resisting (pulling against) an attractive field or pushing against a repulsive field, then the total energy you have to use for the "input energy" in your system has to take the PE of its position, plus that work that you did, or was done on you, by your moving the magnet into position.

This is why your SMOTs will never sustain self-looping: because you have to provide some energy to move stuff into position to get the thing to start moving, and you only get to provide this energy once. It will soon run out (dissipated in friction) and your system will stop, until you start it again by moving the magnet or ball or lever back to the start position (by doing work) and releasing it into an attractive well or a repulsive zone.

[TinselKoala]

I am using some stove pipe galvanized metal which is thin enough that the magnet stack penetrates it and reaches the ball. I play with both polarities and you should too. You can do it if you get off the keyboard and go to the bench...As you might suspect, I do more benchwork than keyboarding cause I get better results.

The real trick here is you have to balance the magetic forces and gravity forces and that requires the slight slope instead of a vertical pendulum which has too much gravity.

Norman

You talk as though you have a self-looping system that runs of itself once started. But I don't think you do have such a system, however "close" you might be. Do you?

If you don't... how come you are such an expert? If you DO... then I will happily follow every bit of advice you give. After I see it demonstrated, of course.

[ramset]

The little red Hen syndrome...........